funding for New Mexico and focus provided by viewers like you this week on New Mexico and focus the future of fire in our state three US Forest Service officials addressed last year's devastating Fire season and talk about the agency's role in Forest Management in a changing climate I won't sugarcoat it we are in a wildfire crisis New Mexico is in a wildfire crisis the good news though is that we know what to do about it plus Meet the Press a reintroduction to our three lead correspondents New Mexico and focus starts now thanks for joining us this week I'm senior producer Lou devio tonight we wrap up our look back at 2023 and look ahead to next year in the second half of the show we reintroduce you to our three lead correspondents Russell contras Antonio Gonzales and Gwyneth Dolan as they talk a bit about their work this year and what sorts of stories they plan to bring us in 202 four but the majority of our show this week will be dedicated to a conversation led by ourland senior producer Laura pascus who sat down in September with three US Forest Service officials it was the first time the agency made its leadership available since last year's historic Fire season in a three-part discussion to better understand what went wrong last spring and summer Laura asks for an explanation of what led up to the devastating hermit's Peak CF Canyon fire and the Sarah palato fire that came right afterwards thank you Lou joining me around the table for this three-part conversation are Southwestern Forester Mito Martin Santa Fe National Forest supervisor Sean Sanchez and Dennis Caroll Santa Fe National Forest fuels program manager thank you all for joining me thank you for having us FL so there is no easy way to start this conversation so let's just jump in um Mico three prescribed fire projects in New Mexico in 2022 to that turned into three wildfires um let's start with the hermit's peak half Canyon fire 341,000 Acres what went wrong last winter and spring yeah last year was an absolutely devastating um year for wildfires and fires here in New Mexico certainly a year that we would never ever want to repeat and um you're right that we had three prescribed fires that escaped under um circum ances which um well of course hindsight is always 2020 but when we apply that hindsight circumstances which were just absolutely unpredictable my colleague Dennis here is an expert um longtime expert in fire fire behavior and um all things fire and I'd love to invite him Laura if that's all right to talk a little bit about what happened in Hermit P calf Canyon and sop Plato yeah Dennis no thanks Laura thanks micho um yeah so I I first I'm going to start out by just my apologies and sympathies the people in Northern New Mexico for everything that they went through with the tragedy of these fires I just I need to say that and I've been thinking about this like Migo said I've been part of this for a long time I've been thinking about this for a long time the the story that comes to mind and I'll be brief is how I started my career and I started in the early 2000s and 2002 the people that were before me and kind of overlapping with me the largest fire those folks saw was like 5 10,000 acres it was a big fire that was the slideshow that they had their experiences that they had in their mind and then moving forward into 2000 in the drought that started in the late 90s in the west and is still perpetuating into now their experience that they had they got surprised they went through an evolution through a portal a Learning lesson with Sarah Grande and the trategy that happened here 23 years ago uh my career has been in drought for 20 plus years U my experiences and my experience with the fire Behavior or as as such that that's how you base your actions off of whether it's Wildfire prescribed fire or planned um I feel what we went through in this last year and then not just last year but over the course of the last few years our the slideshow is not good enough and what we're experiencing out there under prescribed fire conditions under Wildfire conditions we're going through another portal we're going through another Evolution just like we learned from s Grande and all the changes that came with that we're very serious about what changes need to come with moving forward in the timing of the Wildfire crisis strategy and the tragedy that happened here in Northern New Mexico conditions are changing fire is very Dynamic we need to learn from it we will continue to learn from it but we don't we need to keep building our experience and it's it's been very different last year I saw fire Behavior I've never seen before my career yeah so I remember on April 6th you know um last W spring was horrible even here in Albuquerque dry windy um and I remember on April 6th um when I got that press release from the forest service saying that L dispens us had been declared the hermit's peak Wildfire um can you talk about those days and what that felt like and what was happening yeah absolutely so it was a very interesting spring we had a lot of late rounds of moisture uh that built up the snow pack and brought in moisture through February and March um the district was looking at particular windows for this Los dispenses area and within I think it was uh it was at towards the middle of March and towards the end of March within two weeks of April 6th there was moisture there and it was too wet to do things I think uh what really caught people by surprise and it's reflective in some of the the data the stats from the weather of how rapidly things changed and came came into a a hot dry windy pattern this is April 6th you mentioned it's the beginning of the month they're trying to catch this prescribed fire Windows soon after these moisture events to to meet objectives and be between like we are in the spring between winter and summer and prescrib Fire season and then entering into Fire season it's always a challenging time the weather we the weather conditions we experienced uh the hot the the driest on record for April and May and the fourth hottest in April and May and it leads to that transition of uh that moisture and what we're dealing with is weather right weather changes dayto day and these folks had a 3 to four day forecast that's typically what we depend on for a window to get a you know two three day project done but what couldn't be predicted is what was coming what we didn't know was coming in the rest of April and the rest of May and how rapidly things deteriorated with those conditions so everyone knows Sean everyone knows the climate is changing I mean even for some someone like me who has only been in New Mexico a few decades I feel the forests are different I see how they are different um the science certainly is telling us a lot about what's happening but in 2022 do you think that the agency was taking climate change seriously I believe when we look back and going back to April 5th uh we didn't know what we didn't know know and uh that was actually one of the the findings from the review that that occurred is what uh the we we you know we couldn't uh stay complacent or rest on our Laurels is that we needed to really look at the the changing climate and as Dennis described you just the the extreme weather conditions um and how that is being driven by a by a changing climate and uh and so it's important for us to look at that and that's one of the the the key things that we're doing different now in our planning is making sure that we're having the the most recent science uh the most up-to-date modeling um that we're really uh putting every type of productive Service uh into place um and and and and having that for situational awareness uh because you're You're right our forests are in crisis U you know 100 Years of of fire suppression and then you you add on top of that these extreme weather uh events that are you making it hotter drier uh it just it's this recipe for disaster and unfortunately that's what we saw last year yeah so um the sarap palato fire in the H also ignited in the spring of 2022 and the investigation that was just released in July showed that Wildfire also Grew From A prescribed burn uh a pile burn that had been done in the winter of 2022 what went wrong there I think that's a great example of uh not realizing just as Dennis described the the extremely changing conditions U again going back to like April 5th you know before that we wouldn't have you know thought that uh one of our prescribed pile Burns uh that we had completed in in January and February that it would pop up in April um that after many snow events after you know numerous snow events on top of it um it wouldn't pop up but it popped up because of these extreme climate conditions you know that getting to the winds like everybody knows how windy it was um I remember sitting in on the hermit PE CF Canyon uh the the briefings that were going on and the incident meteorologists and the fire Behavior analysts are saying you know there will be textbooks and history books written about these days right now this is unimaginable we could have never imagined um you know adding to you know the the the hottest driest April May it was also you know we had you know a record red flag warnings and red flag conditions over the same time period and you know these measures and then seeing kind of the extreme going from like Dennis said in March of having snow and then extreme drying and we went to you know an extremely wet period that transition from that extreme dry to that extreme wet period that's the most extreme uh transition for parts of New Mexico that they haven't seen in 130 years since you know the these records have been been gathered and and monitored um the world is very very different today than what we thought it was on April 5th yeah um micho why do these investigations take so long like with Sarah palado um it was like almost a year and a half later that we found the public found out what had happened oh wow why do they take so long well I can I can promise you that we're very very thorough and we try to take as least amount of time as possible um we bring we go one of the learnings that came out of the prescribed fire pause was that we need to be more consistent in the way that we investigate um uh origin and causes of fire as well as um Escape fires and so we go through a very long um detailed process just to make sure that we're getting everything right because we understand um the loss you know the the pain the trauma and we want to make sure that when we present our findings to the public that they can trust those findings because um you know it's one step that we have to move forward to try to regain that trust is by doing the investigation very thoroughly and putting out um information that the public can can trust and that we're not going to come back 3 weeks later and say oh you know um actually uh we we UNC covered another we overturned another rock and found some new information so I do apologize because I know that um when we have a devastating event like this the public wants answers and they want them fast and we certainly understand that um and we also take very seriously our duty to ensure that the information that we put out can be trusted and that we can um make good decisions from them yeah so the Blackfire in the hila um 325,000 Acres last year which is also human caused um what do we know what happened there do we know anything oh gosh help me out Sean and Dennis I was I was on the Blackfire with one of The Incident Management teams and I'll tell you a quick cool an maybe not cool but interesting anecdotal story I started on the Wilderness ranger district where that fire was in 2002 the first Wildfire I ever been on my career was called the Blackfire we caught it at 42 Acres or something uh the rest of the next two summers I was out there doing initial attack in these mountains and come there 20 years later I'm on my district my old boss is still there and we're on the black fire again that's near the state record in size and all those fires that we handled and suppressed this have been burnt over probably maybe a couple times it's this interesting perspective for me 20 years later about what I was doing in the first part of my career very exciting and all this stuff but now as I get older and I see this it's like to all that we're talking about through change uh with conditions climate and weather and the extremes that's what struck me and then dealing with this very large fire with uh with an incident management team over that kind of ground it was very challenging I don't know much about the ignition but having been there previously and then last summer on it was a beast and it was very difficult to rain and very uh challenging to deal with just like Hermits and everything else and two different ignition sources same result um in a a big way yeah all right well thank you all we need to take a quick break but up next we'll talk about new protocols for prescribed [Music] fire when we get a guest into the studio we we ask them just give me 10 minutes I wanted you to uh able to listen to How We dive into this person's life we try our best here to get the guest to go beyond talking points you know a lot of politicians will come in here they are very coached by political Consultants and their whole goal is not to get in trouble we want to help get them push them aside and tell us something different so during the Hermits Peak CF Canyon fire the forest Service Chief Randy Moore shut down prescribed fire projects called for a review and issued a new protocol for prescribed fire nationally Dennis what has changed since 2022 on the ground in New Mexico so good question Laura uh just like I had mentioned in the previous segment about the evolution of change that came post Sero Grande we're going through something similar and it's this pause I think was important to kind of collect our thoughts and put down on paper what some of these things we need to think about are without going into extraordinary detail um the things that I'm taking away is wanting a lot more engagement from uh agency administrators and line officers being more engaged and knowing more about the projects being able to speak to them ask questions document those questions through the go noo processes that we have um we used to talk about drought but now we're going to formally talk about drought and formally document that conversation and as Sean said previously as well um having many Minds at the table to have uh a good discussion and so we're keeping each other in check more checks and balances to how we move forward with authorization now when we're moving through prescribed fire some other things are acknowledging more resources that'll need to be on scene uh with our contingency resources being closer or not on scene but Clos closer within 30 minutes response time and then also that kind of the back end of the prescribed fire as far as a patrol plan critical weather stepup plans and things when we're talking about four-month holdovers from pile burs that we know we got to stick with this a lot more intensely using new technology with infrared systems and things that we can start checking things as we're moving into prescribed Fire season yeah oh oh well thank you I was just thinking that Dennis you're just really highlighting some of the additional ways that the forest service have changed um you know to the question that you were asking earlier Laura and I think one of the big things uh in that's kind of embedded in what you just said was that the forest service is really recognizing the complexity of prescribed fire and you know I remember as a little girl that I would be out in the backyard with my father and we would do pile burnings and you wouldn't think that this was something so complex but as Sean and Dennis were earlier talking about of you know how we're finding with the megga drought the residual heat that just stays in the ground round and reignites months Afters that's complex in in a complexity that we had never seen before so I think that that's an example of another kind of learning and way that the forest servic has changed is really just understanding that you know we always knew that we were um we had an inherently dangerous job and now we are just recognizing even more so the complexity that's embedded it because of the changing climate and because of the mega drought yeah so oh sorry I was going to say and so you know and to add to to what Dennis said it you know those specifics but the other part that we're we're doing um is you engaging with the public is making sure that uh they're at the table as well and then that comes in a number of of different forms uh we're going out and and having field trips somebody wants to actually go and walk a unit with us uh with our with our with our fuel specialist with our burn bosses we're doing that last week we had a town hall meeting in in Santa Fe right at uh the Aztec Springs Community there uh we're planning to do a prescribe burn directly adjacent to that Community uh we want to have one-on-one conversations with those neighbors with those land owners that are likely most directly affected um we're wanting to meet people where they're at and and the way they're wanting to do that uh having Town Halls having one-on-one conversations uh making sure that all of our elected officials at the the county level state level uh and National level are understanding and um we had a a town hall uh two days ago in Regina that a lot of the feedback we got even from some of uh the elected officials like their staff members was wow we didn't realize all of the the prep work and the the thought and the preparation that goes into conducting a prescribed burn and so wanting to engage with the communities that we serve in in a very meaningful way to hear their concerns uh to make sure that you know what is there a blind spot that we're not aware of um that they might know because they live right there uh that we listening to them and engaging in that and and adjusting course so um one of the things that I've been thinking about because they've looked at some of the the old prescribed fire plans they're long there's like a lot of planning that goes into them they're complex um are people does the forest service Empower people on the ground to push back um if conditions aren't right or if something goes wrong absolutely AB absolutely it's not a it's the this talk of pressure that's out there um I think it's uh convoluted in some way sometime um we all know what we're up against with everything but never in my experience has there been pressure to light a match the pressure we do put on each other is to get something ready and that's a message that we've sent through our ranks uh from the archaeologist or biologist to the to the burn boss or the agency administrator is you need to have the project ready get the compliance work done get the preparation work done uh so that you have the advantage to take advant to be able to take advantage of window when it comes but never pressure to say it's time to light this this spring no no no no no uh but this is where the wouldn't you say that's one of the changes too that we've experienced that now before you do a prescribed burn if it's a multi-day every single day folks are empowered to empowered and then what we were talking about is like having discussion not just with the agency administrator but the firing and holding bosses and making sure and documenting that this plan that we're about to embark on is bought in by everybody who's involved um I think these conversations that we keep touching on and the the more formal and documented conversations and having the minds at the table are very important one comment I do want to bring up too is uh the the timing of this tragedy is interesting with the Wildfire crisis strategy and that uh one thing that I see the agency doing um it would have probably still went on without this but we're starting to think about and treat prescribed fire is the same crisis as we see wildfires unfolding and I see the the level of support starting to come from the agency and the coordination for resources funding all these different things it's coming together uh coincidentally with the timing of the strategy but to really give the planned prescribed firework where it's in our court to pick the time and place and conditions we're starting to get the attention we need to focus more on it the way we need to so and the forest service is not unique this way but I've been covering environmental issues for like more than 20 years and I see how slow agencies like the forest service are to change and you know from an Outsiders perspective it's it's easy for me to say holy smokes um conditions and life basically on this planet has changed faster than than some of our agencies have um does the forest service have the the capacity and the political will to really make these changes to keep up with what's happening on the forests absolutely um I think like like Dennis said you know we have a very clear priority across the agency to focus and address the Wildfire crisis U the the health of our forest and and frankly the health of our forest gets to the the health and safety of our public right and so it it is a very clear from a priority standpoint of the agency uh the Congress has come through and appropriated I think there's you know about 7 billion do that have been appropriated to to address this uh this crisis headon and um I'm new to the for service seven months here um but what I've seen and so you know my tenure has been all changed but I I see a huge desire uh this is it's like Dennis and I were talking this morning U he said this is what I've been hoping for my entire ire career uh was to see this uh this the straight focus on this priority the health of our forests the safety of our public um and the resources to to get it done and so I can tell you our team here on the Santa Fe is very excited and and and and embracing uh all of the the the change and recognizing that uh you know we're in this everchanging environment and so we can't uh sit back and you know we have to be continually learning over and over again and and and making those efforts um and and you treating our forests the way we need to to address this crisis right reactive versus proactive we we acknowledge we talk about we haven't touched on it yet but fire is an an evitable part of our landscape and our ecosystems it is um what we deal with on the suppression side and the worst possible conditions when something starts in an unwanted time and place is reactive and we still are going to continue to do that will have to do that and give attention but the likelihood of success on some of those events and the way they're unfolding uh we're going to see more uh values and infrastructures in danger or lost or threatened or more lost I guess but uh just thinking about this on the proactive side this is what we're going for and like I do this is a great opportunity this Wildfire crisis strategy we have a long way to go because of what happened with building trust and being transparent and engaging our public and it's a good thing it's forcing us that direction because that's where we need to be but to be on the proactive side and and having the choice knowing Fire's part of the system to be able to pick the time and the place and the conditions and the right Resources with all these changes that we're going to start incorporating and learn from from last year our odds are are way better I we we talk about 99.8 whatever percent of success we and it's not getting hung up on something that happened last year we have to get hung up on that to make sure that we minimize the chance of that ever happening again we can't promise that it won't ever happen again that Fire won't Escape but the odds in defending our values at risk our communities our ecosystems our Watershed our tribal lands uh everything we have a much better chance if we can pick the time in place to reintroduce fire versus being at the mercy if conditions keep changing and getting more extreme we're not having great success in the suppression of vents well so that's something that I I would like for you to talk about a little bit you know there were people even before her PE CF Canyon who were going to oppose prescribed fire projects um looking at a place like for example the Santa Fe Watershed or any number of packed forests in New Mexico if if you couldn't use prescribed fire what other tools are there so the initiation of that project was before my time but the person who was uh greatly involved with it was my mentor and I spent a lot of time in there with with him the district and all the treatments that went on to to bring it to the condition it's in now a lot of discussion was had about removal and mechanical work and this this and thing this this type of thing and all that I've learned in my career and then what what you find is that that Watershed there's one Road in the bottom and you're talking a 1200t climb at 80% 60% slope up to the ridgel lines there's no access the tiny road that goes up there through Canyon Road you're not going to hold log trucks down there uh so like mechanical removal was not really a feasible option there but as I've learned over 20 years and not just the Watershed but everywhere it it's just not about removal and cutting you create activity fuel when you cut something that's may be more volatile for burning after you manipulate it uh and then we have to think about the ecology and what we know about the fire Ecology of our mountains and what role it played and we know that we have a lot of Landscapes that were considered frequent fire forest where fire was the recycler for this Deadwood accumulation it pruned the live trees it kept the live tree densities in check and uh it it uh promoted more open stands we can't replace that with mechanical work alone that's what I've learned through my career and I think the agency is on board with that and understanding all tools are on the table when it comes to implementing these treatments but we won't be successful with the Wildfire crisis strategy in defense of our values at risk and the things that we care about Without fire as part of the plan before we head back to Laura at the table talking with the US Forest Service about the future of fire in New Mexico I want to take a moment to let you know about the ourland YouTube page that's the place where you can find all of Laura's work over the last several years covering environmental issues ranging from water rights to air pollution and of course you can watch all of her beautiful thoughtful assessments of some of our most valued ecosystems places like the Rio Grand Bosque in Albuquerque and the hila River it's all on the ourland YouTube page now I'll throw it back to Laura as she asks those Forest Service officials how the agency is working to better re build public trust as it adapts its fire and Forest management strategies in the southwest's warming climate I think it's fair to say that there has always been some tension between the forest service and communities particularly in Northern New Mexico Sean you are from Las Vegas but fairly new to the job as Forest supervisor on the Santa Fe what are you doing in your role to be building trust my most important thing and it's the you know the priority for me and for our team on the Santa Fe is to to focus on trust and what I've shared with the team is is two things uh that if if we we focus on the these two uh approaches that you know we will be building trust and one is to know and relate to our community and the other is to be a Community Asset and you know knowing and relating to the community um you know one is to be a part of the community and and many of our team lives in the communities um and and many of our team members uh have very deep roots in the communities as well uh many many generations and so uh you know being being a part of the community uh meeting with people uh one-on-one and and engaging one thing that I've heard a bit of feedback is you know making sure that our folks are are living in the communities that they serve because they don't want uh to just see be seen in the rearview mirror at the end of the the work day or you know on on a Friday and uh you know really live there um experience uh the the struggles U also you know experience the the successes is get out and meet one-on-one and so that's been really important for me uh I've gone out and and done uh tours of the The Hermit be calf Canyon burn burn scar with with locals in eng gon and you know David Martinez I think he was a you know um prop publica did a a story about him and and his plight and and not finding a house I've gone and sat in his trailer with him in mon Plano and just wanted to hear his his story and and um you see how we could help now the forest service you know we couldn't build him a house but uh you know what we helped fix the road to Monti plau that's access to the forest and it's something that that we could do and so that's like an example of then being that asset is knowing and relating and understanding our communities um understanding here in Northern New Mexico we have extremely deep ties and connections to the land uh whether it's our tribal communities or you know historic land grant communities and and understand and recognizing just how important the land is um m one of my friends M tro County Commissioner in San M County said you know that we are a people uh of the land and and and understanding that that great connection with the land um and all that the land has provided uh our tribal uh partners for time in Memorial and the land grant communities for for centuries you know providing firewood uh herb Gathering Pino picking grazing Hunting Fishing you name it uh people have been living on the land in in together as one and so then for what can we do to help facilitate that how does that asset uh come in and so when we say we're going to do something we need to follow up and and do it and be very transparent that again comes back to those conversations whether they're one-on-one conversations whether they're Town Hall type conversations whether they're field trips on on our in our units uh maybe it's going and walking you know a fence line with with a land owner and understanding what might be going on there um and then taking that information and translating is like okay well what can we do to to help facilitate firewood firewood is an incredible uh necessary resource for the people in Northern New Mexico that's how most people Heat their homes so you know we're converting a lot of the the hazard trees right now on on the burn Scar and uh taking them and and and getting them and making it all available free wood permits things like that where people could come out into the forest but we're also working W with MAA uh County and the neighbors helping neighbors program to get wood hauled to communities uh we we hauled a bunch of wood last year from the fire like to R mess to the the community there in pekos we're looking to haul more wood to uh MAA this year and also with the neighbors helping neighbors getting wood to those processors that then they're able to get to uh th those elderly folks and folks that might not be able to go get wood on their own and so I think you from a combination of knowing and relating and understanding the needs of the community and then putting it into action and and the forest service really being a a helper in that asset uh I think is is a recipe for uh for building that trust with these communities uh we're not going to fix our our Wildfire crisis without the support and help of our communities right so I feel like this maybe isn't something that um Federal officials typically talk about and certainly you know FEMA is the agency that's working on rebuilding and and that sort of thing but I I'd like to know what the forest service is doing in terms of reconciliation and healing with communities yeah Laura thank you for your question and I think it really goes to what Sean was sharing just a moment ago that part of reconciliation and part of healing is recognizing our part that led into the devastating fire and um sharing and being a part of the solution right being a part of work with the community to um help rebuild um lives and livelihoods post fire um you know we can't take away the pain and the loss but I think that what we can do is promise to the community that we will be there and walk with them into a future um you know into a future of of repair restoration and Rehabilitation so I think that's what we can do um and and we we are um along with our federal Partners trying to do the most that we can to ensure that um that we are helping folks become whole that they are recovering what they've lost to the best extent that we can I know it's not perfect and it's been a long long road um but as Sean said you know really just trying to understand um what we can do to help people and then delivering on that yeah and Dennis I know these issues are really important to you and we've talked about them over the years but why should anyone trust the forest service when it comes to prescribed fires it's a great question um everybody say we got a lot of work to do there's no question but why should they I kind of touched on it I think earlier um in that fire is part of our system it's part of our backyard it's part of it's just like hunting and fishing and all the wood Gathering everything else fire is part of this too we're not going to be able to live with without it Sean touched on something very important it's it's a societal problem it's just not a for service problem but we're the stewards we're the ones responsible uh I would say like why should we be trusted because the Alternatives aren't very good uh if we think of fire is inevitable and having it play out under its own circumstances isn't a good option I don't think it's not just here in New Mexico but we see it across the West there there's places that are in danger there's in places that are going to be in Dire Straits we don't know when it's going to happen or if it's going to happen in our lifetime but all the ingredients are there for something bad to happen so by working with the communities rebuilding the trust the big one for me is transparency about what when and where we're doing building those relationships like the community meeting and Santa Fe the other day was great concerned land owners asking hard questions and they weren't combative but they were they really wanted to know and it was a great conversation and that's the the model I see moving forward is continuing this level of Engagement to build that trust and understand that Fire's part of our landscape and in my opinion um I know people don't trust the government uh for a variety of different reasons this situation is very complex but we know the alternative I think are I think our situation is still going to be better with all the things that we can change moving forward from this disaster integrating with our community building that support and using the tools necessary to do it more on our terms versus being at the mercy of Mother Nature so we've talked a little bit about transparency and um you know the town hall meeting and stuff like that um you know I've been asking the forest service since April 2022 to have onair conversations about hermit Peak CF Canyon prescribed fire climate change um and it it's taken a year and a half for that conversation to happen um what is the forest service doing in in terms of better transparency with the Press oh that's a great question and I hope this is an example of um of really just being available being open and willing to talk and um I apologize that it took so long for us to get here but um certainly would invite um additional conversations you know should you want them and we won't make you wait a year and a half again um so I I think that um so so sorry that it did take so long everything even from the way that we um work with the Press during suppression to the kinds of engagements that Sean's talking about when we have a prescribed fire we are really just throwing um you know lifting up the curtain throwing the room open and just inviting people in because we see that as a necessary step towards rebuilding trust with the community um so hold us to that and I mean that hold us to it um so we've been talking a lot about policies and protocols and changes and big overwhelming issues but sort of at the end of the day we are all just four human beings sitting around a table together um and certainly so many new Mexicans lives have been impacted um I'd like to start with you Sean um you know what do you want to say to New Mexicans about last year and also about the future of fire in New Mexico's forests yeah um I think taking a cue from like Mito and say you know one is to apologize for the forest Services role last year um I was working for the US fish and wildlife service in in Washington DC and last April uh watching the the briefings and and everything going going on uh so far away was was pretty helpless uh feeling for me and um you my parents were evacuated for I think a total of about five weeks um c a cousin that that lost a home uh numerous friends and family evacuated and and I've seen a lot of the the devastation and destruction that occurred because of last year um and and it's and it's it's really difficult and I can't put into words the you know the feeling that I have um and I can even imagine those that uh lost everything in their lives will be forever changed um so I totally recognize that and um what my commitment is and you know I guess I I should go back and say it actually changed my life as well uh because it changed my trajectory uh to find a way I'd been trying to to find a way to come back home and there was was an opportunity to to come home and help um to to help try to heal uh to help uh Rec recover restore and and to really think about the possibilities in in the future and how we can live together and and work together uh knowing just how important the land is to uh people in in Northern New Mexico and as Dennis said the stewards that have been entrusted this responsibility with the forest service it's not a responsibility that we take very lightly and that we are are committed to being uh part of the communities and that we're committed to working with our communities uh to to address the crisis that that's before us and and to really heal uh recover restore and and build a really new future for Northern New Mexico together right Dennis the future of fire in New Mexico it will be here and it's going to be something that uh we're going to have to engage on and it's going to be part of our Lives the future of fire um I I think I've touched on it before it's this reactive versus proactive thing and I I'll touch on it again if if again building the trust having the transparent conversations engaging making this a cultural shift here in New Mexico to accept and acknowledge and deal with fire together not just the agency in a vacuum but trying to be transparent there aren't very good options for us but we know like from Sarah Pato the story is not out there yet and I'm glad you I have one more time slot here the irony of uh uh that what happened on that fire the Escape prescribed fire but the interactions with the treatments from the landscape project there that happened in the early 2010s up against over almost a 40 mph wind steered fire away from that Community because of the cutting and burning treatments this stuff works I want that to be the future of fire in New Mexico where we have successes like that that we're invited to talk about and share about and I want people to know that these kind of treatments work and by working together and focusing and prioritizing where we place these treatments they do work they do have an effect and it's a way that we're going to be be able to live with fire going into Changing Times in the future J we are out of time but last words yeah thank you I won't sugarcoat it we are in a wildfire crisis New Mexico is in a wildfire crisis the good news though is that we know what to do about it you know Dennis has talked about mechanical thinning prescribed fire so we know what to do in order to help the five um national forests in New Mexico be healthy and be resilient and working together with our um residents of New Mexico we can get there so I am very optimistic about the future but it starts with um commitment to addressing the Wildfire crisis that's it before us right now well thank you all for coming in to have this important conversation I appreciate it thanks Laura thank you thanks to Laura for That interview you may have noticed a bit more of our correspondence over the second half of 2023 as we transitioned through longtime host Jee Grant's departure that's why we invited our three lead correspondents to the studio together to reintroduce them to you our audience they explain in their own words the types of stories they're interested in exploring each week alongside Russell contras and Antonio Gonzalez here's gwynneth Dolan thanks Lou I'm New Mexico and focus political correspondent gwenneth Dolan and I'm happy to be in studio today with Antonia and Russell who you just saw interviewing the US attorney Antonia you've done some great work uh here on New Mexico and focus to speaking with Leona Morgan about the history of nuclear development on the Navajo Nation just a couple of weeks ago I know I'm at the head of the table today but not for any good reason we've all been doing this for a long time um but I want to start with you Antonia can you tell us just refresh the audience uh reacquaint them with you uh what you've done in your career so far and the type of work you are mostly doing here at this station well I'm a proud citizen of the Navajo Nation and I grew up in Arizona and New Mexico um I went to the University of New Mexico got my journalism degree way back when long time ago um and then I started out as a commercial television reporter I had great mentors um famous investigative reporter conro Chino that's well known here in New Mexico he was one of my mentors back in the day um so I did a little bit of commercial television until I found my passion in Native radio which I've been doing for gez couple decad ades now um and it's I'm still doing it obviously and of course here my work with New Mexico PBS mostly covering tribal issues and mirroring a lot of the work that I'm doing on the radio we are very fortunate to have you doing it Russ how about you how long have you been a journalist we don't have to have an exact year but but what what were you doing before you came to us well I started uh my career in the ' 90s working in Houston working on alternative newsweekly Publications and then I took my career New York and then Boston and back here uh this is my second time in New Mexico you know the stories I cover now at axos around race and Justice and that's looking at how race plays a role in the debates around our our political system what's going on the country is becoming more diverse it's uh becoming younger but yet we seem to not be able to reconcile our history and that will spill over and how things uh we debate things about education uh about our political system like who needs who can hold office who's eligible to hold office these are intense debates that don't go away and this reminds me of some of the stuff that you cover here in state government you've been doing this for about a decade uh covering our legislatures when it begins in January where can we find you when you're not uh sticking a mic in a lawmaker's face what are you up to now it's it's pretty tough uh doing this session as everyone knows the legislative session just throws your regular life up in the air but you know I'm teaching most of the time now I started an ALT weeklys to Russ um in the '90s and uh then I spent I spent about 10 years in newspapers then I moved to politics online and did some radio and then came here to TV and I've been teaching for about 13 years that's as long as I've been here and I started teaching just one class at a time for fun and now I've sort of flipped my career where I'm mostly teaching I'm a professor now and then I come over here to spend time with you and cover the the legislature do some elections and when I asked nicely they let me do some interviews with authors and artists something that's a little you know more colorful Gen X power that's what I say that's right we got to stick together right uh Antonia speaking of political coverage you've done some of that too and that's one of your areas of expertise um you have been interviewing both candidates for uh both of the leading candidates for the Navajo Nation president ahead of last year's election what type of stories are you really interested in doing now moving forward well we're going to have a definitely with the election we're going to have more election coverage and it's not just you know the tribal candidates and then tribal leaders but national elections State elections because of course Indian country is important when it comes to having those relationships of course the federal government has a trust responsibility to tribes it's a big consy and so here in New Mexico we have 23 tribes and there's a lot that goes on here so definitely election coverage coming up um I just finished doing a couple stories in Santa Fe one was talking to artists at the Santa Fe Indian market and also this really neat uh Alaska native Park exhibit that's being shown in Santa Fe through next April and so those are a couple stories that um are going to come out pretty soon and definitely Healthcare education housing anything and everything that has to do with Native people people often think that we get that we're really into our own little beats but the thing that I you know that sort of unifies us as journalists is this Relentless curiosity right uh Russ you've had some pretty good interviews some fairly high-profile interviews in recent months you did Bernal Leo County's new district attorney and then the interview we just saw today with us attorney Alex zuz um but then you've also spoken with authors and professors what should viewers be looking for you to do in in the coming months what are you really into right now well when we get a guest into the studio we we asked them just give me 10 minutes I wanted you to uh able to listen to How We dive into this person's life we try our best here to get the guest to go beyond talking points you know a lot of politicians will come in here they are very coached by political consultants and their whole goal is not to get in trouble we want to help get them push them aside and tell us something different look we're in the poorest state in the nation we have have a lot of challenges here if a politician is just sitting throwing out talking points and not giving us anything we're not going to advance we need to ask the tough questions how are you different it's not enough to say I'm for my children's future or I'm anti- pothole we should all be that way right that REM makes no tell me something what keeps you up at night and this reminds me of what you do as a political correspondant you bring up a lot of things about our political landscape you talk about Reproductive Rights you talked about redistricting in the coming days what are you interested what really captures your imagination about our political landscape and what are you going to be doing that in the next coming months I liked what you said earlier about young people and the changing demographics and the changing ideas of the people who are starting to vote now and the people who are going to be our future lawmakers we've got a uh you know a fairly fresh crop of lawmakers in Santa Fe right now it's been an it's been a very interesting time of transition of power over the past 5 six years a lot of new voices up there a lot of changes within the Republican party and the Democratic party all of this is making us kind of re-examine dynamics that really had been fairly stuck in place for decades and now it's kind of a new game which I find really interesting of course this January we're going to be talking about money money money money because it's a budget session um some of these are going to be familiar themes oh hey we've got a whole bunch of oil and gas money right now what are we going to do with it um but the nature of these conversations is different you know now people are talking in different ways and you know we often do these things as reporters where you plan an interview and then you think okay what what's she G to say when I ask that okay she's going to say that I know and then I'm GNA say this right and you can basically kind of plan interviews out because you know this politician with an artist you can never predict that right but withl politicians you can but I I'm finding this harder and harder and that's what's keeping me really interested you know looking out for the people who are now my students who are going to be graduating getting real jobs in news and then buying houses and becoming members of their communities and all of a sudden becoming interested in the school board and taxes and development and all these kinds of things so I keep my students in mind when I'm doing all of this reporting not just is this going to be relevant to them when they see it um but looking out for their interests you know especially as the media changes its landscape we have to really consider how do we use media to um hit our consumers we got to think about newsletters we got to think about podcasts we got to think about non-traditional ways to go after these news consumers who are going to be shaping our state's future yeah my students never watch this show at 7:00 on Friday but they see it on YouTube right all the time so we'll check in with them there well it was was great catching up with you all and I look forward to working with you in the coming months and doing some really great television thank you thanks for watching and happy New Year we'll see you next [Music] week funding for New Mexico and focus provided by the viewers like you